CyArk 500 Challenge: digital preservation of top archaeologic sites

The CyArk 500 Challenge has the ambitious goal to digitally preserve 500 cultural heritage sites within the next five years. Heritage sites are a significant part of our collective memory and we are losing them at an alarming rate, due to natural causes and also human’s. Non-profit US organization CyArk, which has already successfully preserved “scores of the world’s most famous cultural sites,” is partnering with the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) to laser scan a number of at-risk sites, including some in Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East.

CyArk was founded in 2003 to ensure heritage sites are available to future generations, while making them uniquely accessible today. CyArk operates internationally as a non-profit organization with the mission of using new technologies to create a free, 3D online library of the world’s cultural heritage sites before they are lost to natural disasters, destroyed by human aggression or ravaged by the passage of time. CyArk and its partners are on a mission to save these cultural heritage sites digitally before more are ravaged by war, terrorism, arson, urban sprawl, climate change, earthquakes, floods, and other threats.

CyArk has already completed 40 projects toward its goal of 500. These sites, called the Exemplar Projects, include Pompeii, Babylon, Mt. Rushmore, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Titanic, the Sydney Opera House and, most recently, the Tower of London. Members of the heritage community are invited to submit sites for consideration to be included in the CyArk 500. Interested governments, organizations and individuals are asked to submit a letter of interest. Submissions will be evaluated by the CyArk 500 Advisory Council for selection as part of the 500. Letters that pass the initial review will be asked to submit a formal application for review by the Advisory Council. Selected sites may be eligible to receive digital preservation funding through the CyArk 500 Fund.

The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision has released its new White Paper, Towards a New Audiovisual Think Tank for Audiovisual Archivists and Cultural Heritage Professionals. The White Paper, the first effort from a new ‘AV Think Tank’ on audiovisual … Continue reading →

digital tour technology helps audiences with accessibility needs understand the spaces and routes in advance, before stepping inside the building

Auckland Live is a part of Regional Facilities Auckland, committed to promoting the arts, and supporting inclusiveness and access to the arts for all. In early December 2017, Auckland Live launched the first Accessibility Virtual Tour for the Town Hall– … Continue reading →

The aim of this special issue is to solicit interdisciplinary studies about the complex phenomenon that takes place during the aesthetic and synesthetic involvement of a human observer in the perception of Cultural Heritage and art mediated by virtual and … Continue reading →

Second call for proposals / Workshop at the conference Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 7 March 2018 at the University of Helsinki This workshop seeks to expand critical perspectives on metadata in relation to public cultural heritage image collections online. In our image-saturated … Continue reading →

From Data to Wisdom: Resilient Integration across Societies, Disciplines, and Systems. The ACM/IEEE Joint Conference on Digital Libraries in 2018 (JCDL 2018) will be held in conjunction with UNT Open Access Symposium 2018 on June 3 – 6, 2018 in Fort Worth, … Continue reading →

The church was 3D scanned for reference to become an interactive, informal and formal educational space.

A 3D digital re-creation and preservation of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, the oldest African-American church in Indianapolis, was performed by Indiana University and recently presented to the public. Bethel AME Church has historically been the heart of the African … Continue reading →

led by Paris Panthéon-Sorbonne University, this course starting mid-January 2018 provides a wide overview of tourism issues at UNESCO World Heritage Sites

This MOOC “Tourism Management at UNESCO World Heritage Sites”, produced by the UNESCO-UNITWIN Network “Culture, Tourism, and Development”, provides an introduction to tourism at UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Moving from UNESCO’s principles and doctrines, the MOOC covers Communication Technologies, Economy, Management and … Continue reading →